Day 1: Bayeux

After leaving the beach (*tear), we continued to Bayeux to see the famous tapestry.
Jacqueline had to get a picture here at the entrance in the same spot where she has a picture with her mom from two years ago. I love that she's still holding a cookie. Those things were our staple bus snack food.
Lovely horse-boat action going on at the entrance.
A little about the tapestry:
It measures 20" by 230' and because the designs aren't woven into the fabric, it's not a tapestry, but rather an embroidery. We don't know much about its history, but it was probably made in England around 1070, and commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William the Conqueror's half-brother. From what I've read, the French also call it "Queen Mathilda's Tapestry," leading some to believe that she made it, but that's highly unlikely. (On an unrelated but funny note, if my internet sources are correct, William was 5'10" and his wife Mathilda was 4'2"! Did she walk on stilts? Have a sore neck from looking up at him all the time?) The tapestry was taken to Bayeux and displayed in the cathedral there every year for the Feast of Relics. That went on for 400 years and over the next 300 years, I guess the churchgoers lost interest. It almost perished in the revolution when the people of Bayeux used it to cover ammunition wagons, and again when it was almost cut up to be used as decoration. What were these people thinking? Since then, it's been restored, moved around some more, and saved from possible capture by the Germans and destruction from the D-Day invasion--they hid it in the Louvre. It's had its share of damage and is missing pieces but it's remarkable it survived at all. Today it's back in Bayeux under ideal preservation conditions. If you have five minutes, watch the animated YouTube video and maybe in the meantime someone can teach me how to post those directly on the blog.
Afterward, we explored the town. The rest of the pictures are pretty random. In one of the lace shops we stopped at, there was a lady making lace who we watched for a while. It must take a looong time to learn it that well.
The cathedral where the tapestry was kept for so long. We didn't get to go inside, unfortunately. It kind of looks like Mont St. Michel, which is up next.

The 12 apostles bar? This one is sign of the week worthy!
Sarah couldn't resist posing with this handsome cardboard cutout chilling on the sidewalk.
I know, crazy hair. It was super windy.
I took advantage of the photo-op when our crepe-maker stepped away for a moment.
A reindeer?!
Happy belated birthday to David, Andra, and Jon! Stay tuned for Mont St. Michel.

Day 1: Normandy beaches

We went on an awesome road trip last week. I have so much blog material. Let's start at the beginning. After going to see The Bourgeois Gentilhomme the night before with the class, we got a sleepy start the next morning meeting at the Welches' at 8.
This theater was much more cozy than the last one and we were right up in the action. The play was hilarious.
Our first stop was the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. The visitors center was really cool.
Omaha Beach.

"In proud remembrance of the achievements of her sons and in humble tribute to their sacrifices, this memorial has been erected by the United States of America."
It's a beautiful cemetery with beautiful surroundings. I wish we could have stayed longer.

We drove 4 more miles down the coast to get to Pointe du Hoc, a strategic location and point of attack in the Battle of Normandy where there's a ranger memorial.
Bomb crater.
Can you imagine scaling those 100-ft cliffs?

Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Saturday morning we were going to go to a big fair/market on the island of Chatou. It turns out they charge you. What kind of a market is that?
Forget antiques. We played at the park next to it. This rope jungle gym thing was awesome. Emma gave me her camera and I took like 200 pictures. It was way fun.
Ah, the Seine. Walking back to the station to take the train the other way to St-Germain-en-Laye.
A big park where we stopped for lunch.

The arch says "Here was born Louis XIV." The French are obsessed with that guy. Along with Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy's new wife.

From the edge of the park there's a good view. Here we have the self-portraitists.
And I've labeled some landmarks for you.
That's the bridge the train crosses.
The castle where Louis was born, which now houses the National Archaelogical Museum.


Some of the highly exciting things we saw inside include this lady, La Dame à la Capuche, one of the oldest "portraits" of man dating from 21,000 BC.
What is it with these people and antlers?
Oh, it's just a megaceros.
Molière hung out with Louis in this room with a very tall fireplace.
These models were pretty cool. I bet you know what this one is...
And does this one look familiar?

Academia at the Rodin museum

Friday was a great day to visit the Rodin museum, which is housed in an 18th-century hôtel with an interesting history. It was built in 1731 for some guy who got rich quick in paper money speculation. As he died only a year later, it went to a duchess and then to Marshall Biron, a hero in the Battle of Fontenoy in the War of Austrian Succession, whose name it now carries. When Biron's heir was guillotined in the Revolution, it became a government building--home to the Papal legate and then the Russian ambassador. In 1820 it became a Catholic boarding school for girls, which was closed in 1905 with the separation of church and state law. It was then subdivided and there were plans to tear it down and replace it with apartments, but good old Rodin rented some rooms for sculpture storage and started pushing for a museum of his work. He bequested his property and work and the museum opened in 1919, two years after his death. That's the history lesson, now on to today's art lesson:
The Cathedral, stone, 1909
Mozart, marble, 1911
A chandelier.
The Farewell, plaster, 1898
Sleep, marble, 1894
Edward Munch, Rodin's Thinker in the Park
The real Thinker.
One of, in my opinion, way too many Balzac heads, busts and statues in that room.
I love Victor's pose here.
One of his most famous, The Burghers of Calais, 1888. After a year-long siege of Calais by the English during the Hundred Years War (1347), King Edward III offered to spare the city if six of its top leaders would surrender the keys to the castle and themselves for execution. Their lives were spared when the queen convinced Edward to let them go. Under French law no more than 12 casts were allowed to be made after Rodin's death. The original is in Calais, and the others are spread out across the world. This is the first version that got rejected.
Van Gogh, anyone?
This is what the real one looks like.
The gold Invalides dome.
The hôtel from behind.
The Thinker outside with the Eiffel Tower peeking out beside him.
And finally, a lesson in hair-flipping.
We amused ourselves like this for quite a while. Good thing the garden was pretty empty.
That's physics.